SARA PRICE RISKED IT ALL ON DAKAR IN 2024 AND SHES READY TO DO IT AGAIN

It took a lifelong dream, a fierce level of commitment and roughly $500,000 for Sara Price to finally race the world-renowned Dakar Rally.

Since 2015, the X Games medalist had been attempting to go overseas and compete firsthand in the 9,000-mile endurance event held annually in Saudi Arabia. But every year, she kept coming up empty-handed.

“It’s very rare you get the opportunity just handed to you to where someone says, ‘Oh hey, we’ve got money for you to go race Dakar. Here’s a ride.’ That’s not normal,” Price explained.

Door after door was slammed shut until eventually, the off-road racer decided to force one open herself. Ahead of the 2024 Dakar Rally, 31-year-old Price rolled up her sleeves and got to work raising money for her Arabian adventure.

“It got to a point where I couldn’t depend on anyone else but myself, so I decided to take up my entire savings I’d built up over my entire life and basically put it all into one basket and go to the Dakar Rally to achieve my bucket-list dream,” Price said, eyes wide.

“Thank you, Jesus, that it went well,” she added with a laugh.

Armed primarily with hopes and dreams, Price traveled over 8,000 miles to get from her residence in Southern California to the city of AIUIa in Saudi Arabia, where the rally raid was set to begin.

Though the weather was fairly similar to home and the food admittedly wasn’t half bad, the Dakar rookie found plenty to be surprised by upon arrival. 

“I never really feel like you can be completely prepared for Dakar,” said Price, in spite of the strong resume she brought with her. 

In addition to winning multiple off-road championships in America, Price was also the first woman to win an Extreme E race for Chip Ganassi Racing. She worked as a professional stunt driver in Hollywood, and has competed on both two and four wheels. 

Yet, the terrain she found at Dakar contained some of the most brutal obstacles and conditions she’d ever faced in her career.

“Saudi Arabia has a very diverse desert, so you have absolutely every style of terrain. Everything is massive…and the rocks are like razor blades,” Price said. On top of that, “you’re kind of just in the middle of nowhere taking your own route, so you don’t know if a cliff is coming up or something like that.”

Although every Dakar vehicle is equipped with a GPS device, drivers are required to rely on a paper “roadbook” to navigate the course and reach specific waypoints. Meaning, navigation is one of the most critical keys to success at the rally.

“You can get lost out there very easily, and you can only drive as fast as you can navigate,” Price explained. 

From a lifestyle standpoint, Price likens Dakar and its traveling caravan — referred to as the “Bivouac” — to iconic desert events such as “Burning Man” and off-road races such as “King of the Hammers” in America. 

“It’s a little more on the clean and professional side, though,” she noted.

On Jan. 5, 2024, Price set out on her debut Dakar journey in the driver’s seat of a privateer Can-Am Maverick X3 alongside navigator Jeremy Gray. Little did she know, just over a week later, she would make history as the first American woman to win a stage at Dakar. 

It was stage 10 for the T4 SSV class, and Price was confidently speeding through the treacherous Arabian desert. Already pleased with how clean she’d managed to race that day, Price rolled into the checkpoint wondering where she had placed.

“Our phones get locked up (while we race) so when I got to open up my phone, I checked the standings and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, we won!’ You know, that wasn't the plan that day,” Price said.

The plan at Dakar, as Price says, is always longevity. Pushing to win every day for 14 days straight isn’t a sustainable practice for the car, so the battle often becomes survival versus speed.

But that particular day, Price had no regrets about locking down a stage win.

“What a cherry on top of my first Dakar, to win a stage. I had no idea there'd only been three females ever (to win a stage), let alone I was the first American female,” Price said. “I was kind of like surprised by that as well, because I figured there should have been more by now.”

Germany’s Jutta Kleinschmidt and Spain’s Cristina Gutiérrez are the other two females who have won a Dakar stage.

In retrospect, it’s easy for Price to recognize the weight of her accomplishment, but in her Dakar reality, the racer couldn’t help but focus on how her debut ended.

“I was a little bit heartbroken because at the end, I was in a podium position and I went for the win and I ended up losing the podium spot,” Price recalled. 

Despite the disappointment, she finished fourth overall in the T4 SSV category and was named the best rookie of the 2024 rally.

“I didn't expect to do that well my first year,” Price admitted. “Coming home, you know, a lot of people were proud. It was definitely a confidence booster, because not a lot of people expected me to do so well.”

Like many first-time competitors, Price experienced the 'post-Dakar blues' — a bittersweet feeling evoked when the rally comes to an end.

“It’s a sad thing when it's over, because you just want it to keep going. They call it the Dakar addiction. When it's done you think, ‘What did I just do?’ When you're in it, you're like, ‘Why am I doing this?’ And then in the end, you're like, ‘Oh well I wanna go back,’” Price laughed.

The 32-year-old will be starting her sophomore run at Dakar on January 3 — this time driving a Can-Am Maverick R for Can-Am Factory Racing. Price also has a new navigator, Sean Berriman, who won the Dakar Rally as a co-driver in 2020.

Watch Price and her fellow competitors take on the 2025 Dakar Rally live on MAVTV.

Catch the full interview HERE.